Shaleigh, our house/catsitter, had written me to tell me that one of my cats had kissed her cat. Oh, I miss my babies so much. That was the perfect news! It was a great way to start the day.
We then went to the "Kozy Kitchen," which is the breakfast cart at the KOA. The couple who worked in there made us a delicious breakfast and told us how they came to work at the KOA. They were retired from the restaurant business and decided to work at the KOA Kampgrounds instead of retiring somewhere to sit around all day (no offense to any who sit around all day and enjoy it). In return for their work for five hours a day, they receive a paycheck AND a free RV slot at the campground. Awesome. Dave and I totally plan to sell our house and buy an RV. Yes! Just kidding, Mom.
We started out by driving out to the Grand Canyon. We came across this little gem along the way.
I don't know if it was called Bedrock Land or Flinstones World or what, but it was intense. Dave claims that there was a whole little Bedrock world behind the fence, but I never got to see it. :(
We did enter into the gift shop there where we saw this:
Again, my people, the fighter plane in the parking lot. What is this all about? Can someone explain it to me?
Then came the Grand Canyon, which was stunning, to say the least. I can’t put into words what it was we saw. The downside is that the weather was pretty cloudy, so we didn’t really get the full splendor of the canyon, but that made no difference to us. Here are a few highlights of the Canyon from our perspective.
At one point, we saw that folks were climbing down the rocks and going out on this ledge to get some cool pictures. Dave was going to have none of that, but I couldn’t resist. So I jumped down and headed out on the rocks. Dave was nervous about me being out there. Whatever, dude.
There were some pretty great signs in the Canyon, too.
Don’t slide on your ass while pooping.
Have your mom make sandwiches and be sure to bring some water.
Fight the kitties that be.
Men who take their shirts off might barf in this canyon.
Humans should not do Tai Chi with deer.
Kitties will jump out for the next 10 miles.
If your finger is bleeding, show it to a squirrel. He can help you.
There was lots of information about animals in the park. This is one example:
We also visited the Tusayan ruins at the Grand Canyon, which were built about 900 years ago.
This community was a puebloan people, as we have discussed before. The fascinating thing about them is that the rooms had no windows, and the doors were holes in the roof. The only way to get into a room was via the ceiling.
The reasons presented for this included safety from animals and the belief that spirits came to earth through holes in the ceiling of their worlds.
While on the tour here at the ruins, we learned of the death of Farah Faucett and the possible death of Michael Jackson from a park ranger who had confused Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson in another story, so we weren’t quite sure who died. After the tour, I received a voicemail from Dave’s sister confirming MJ’s death. So bizarre and sad.
After that, we went to a place called the Desert View Watchtower.
The Watchtower was built in the 1930s to resemble a more ancient structure and was intended to house a gift shop. It was a bit nifty. Unfortunately, because it was too windy and the skies looked menacing, we could not go to the observation deck on the roof, but we could climb up a few floors and look out at the canyon.
The paintings inside were down by a local Hopi artist of the time and were intended to resemble Native American rock art found in the area.
After the ruins, we headed back toward the main visitors’ center. On the way, we saw that a number of cars had pulled over on both sides of the two-lane road in the park. Everyone was looking to our right of in the woods. I looked over and saw this:
A 12-point elk. We got out of the car and walked closer to get some better pictures. The elk was aware of the people around, but he was totally unfazed by it. I guess it was used to all the people coming and going. Don’t worry, Mom. We didn’t get NEARLY as close as these photos imply. I saw all of those signs warning us that animals wanted to eat us. Still, it was pretty incredible to be this close to such a massive animal.
At this point, it was about 5 pm, and we were at a loss for how to proceed with the rest of our day. Where would we stay? In which town? Would we camp or stay in a hotel? We finally decided to…well,…decide later. Instead, we headed to Hopi Point to see the sun set. We had been told by others in the park that Hopi Point was a VERY popular place to see the sunset, and we should not be surprised if it were very crowded up there. We could take a blue-line shuttle to a transfer point and then get on a green-line shuttle to get to Hopi Point. Afterwards, there would be a line of buses ready to take us back. That sounded great. We hoped it wouldn’t be too crowded. On a cloudy day like this, we weren’t sure we’d see anything, though. However, I figured that the sun would have to fall below the cloud line at some point, right? Yeah, well, while we were headed to the blue line, it started to get windy. The wind was quickly accompanied by rain. The temperature dropped by about 20 degrees as well. By George, we were going to see this sunset if it killed us.
Ever prepared, I whipped out the handy-dandy emergency ponchos I had purchased at the Dollar General before we left on our trip. At the store, Dave had said, “Don’t buy those. They’re stupid. I’m not going to wear one of those stupid things.” I shrugged and said, “We’ll see about that.” Well, Dave ate some fat, steaming crow at the Grand Canyon that day. It took no time for me to get him to wear one. It became quite a serious element in our sunset adventure.
We wore our ponchos proudly in the wind and rain. I got a little stuck trying to get mine on.
Meanwhile, Dave came up with an ingenious way to keep his poncho hood on his head: he tucked it under his glasses.
Nerd.
We rode the green line bus out to Hopi Point. We were the only people to get off the bus when it stopped. The crowds of people we expected to see were nowhere to be found. Besides the two of us, there were three other people out there to watch the sunset. And what a sunset it was! It was incredible. The sun peaked through the clouds right before it set, just as we had expected.
While we were waiting and watching, another bus came by to let people off and pick people up, but, for some reason, the driver just sat there in the bus and waited until we were done. For the record, as usual, Dave and I were the last people out. While the sun was setting, everyone else gave up and got on the bus. They couldn’t hang. Quitters.
By the time we got back to the visitors’ center where our car was parked, everything was closed, and the park was pitch black. One thing we learned about the Grand Canyon: they don’t give a hoot what you need to do after the sun goes down; they’re leaving. What this means is that there were NO LIGHTS anywhere around the parking area or anywhere near the parking area. We had to walk in the dark and trust that we had some kind of a clue where the parking lot was and where our car was within that lot. I had forgotten my cell phone, so I couldn’t even use that to shed a wee bit of light on our surroundings. Dave told me later that he was thinking the whole time about mountain lions attacking park visitors in the dark. Thank God he didn’t say anything while we were out there or I would have freaked out. Anyhow, we reached our car without much trouble and headed west toward LA.
Because it was raining, Dave agreed to stop at a motel instead of camping. Again, Thank God! I needed a real shower and a real bed...for at least one night. It was great to get a solid eight hours of sleep in a place where I didn’t need to put on shoes and pants to walk to the bathroom. Phew! And so ended Day 13. What a weird day.
best sign interpretations ever.
ReplyDelete-keri
I would have to agree. Very funny.
ReplyDeleteAmy B.